This subspecies, Accipiter gentilis laingi, was named by Taverner in Condor
42: 160, 1940, from Masset, QCI. In the 1957 AOU check-list, the last to
include subspecies, the range was listed as QCI and Vancouver Island
(resident). There has been some discussion that it also occurs in western
WA and OR (Jewett et al., Birds of Washington State, 1953). The petition, I
believe, states that it occurs in coastal Alaska also, and one of the
points of getting it listed was to attempt to protect the Tongass National
Forest in AK. It was diagnosed as a darker subspecies, not differing in any
other way. Specimens in this museum don't show that western WA goshawks are
particularly darker than eastern WA ones, so I can't confirm its occurrence
south of Canada. If it received Endangered or Threatened status, its exact
range would be a matter of *great* importance, obviously. I didn't know
that these Northwestern goshawk populations were declining any more rapidly
than those elsewhere, but with the heavy logging on Vancouver Island and
elsewhere along the Canadian and Alaskan Pacific coast, perhaps they are.

Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416